A Survey on Static Cache Analysis for Real-Time Systems

Real-time systems are reactive computer systems that must produce their reaction to a stimulus within given time bounds. A vital verification requirement is to estimate the Worst-Case Execution Time (WCET) of programs. These estimates are then used to predict the timing behavior of the overall system. The execution time of a program heavily depends on the underlying hardware, among which cache has the biggest influence. Analyzing cache behavior is very challenging due to the versatile cache features and complex execution environment. This article provides a survey on static cache analysis for real-time systems. We first present the challenges and static analysis techniques for independent programs with respect to different cache features. Then, the discussion is extended to cache analysis in complex execution environment, followed by a survey of existing tools based on static techniques for cache analysis. An outlook for future research is provided at last.